


of sudden executions and shattered hearts

by GKingOfFez



Series: fics where i kill ezra bridger [1]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Death, Gen, Graphic Description, Grief/Mourning, Head Injury, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 01:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10629384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GKingOfFez/pseuds/GKingOfFez
Summary: Rex pulls the blaster from the holster strapped to his hip. Kanan only has a millisecond to choke out a “No,” and half-lift his hand before the clone fires it point-blank into the back of Ezra’s head.





	

* * *

 

**_Before_ **

 

* * *

 

It is a night aboard the _Ghost_ like any other- the whole crew is hanging out in the common room, Kanan sitting with an arm lazily around Hera in the lounge booth, both of them leaning into each other’s touch; Sabine carefully mixing paints and volatile powders together on a crate near the galley’s doorway, humming some old Mandalorian marching song as she works; Zeb stripping and cleaning his bow-rifle on the dejarik table while simultaneously trying to tell Kanan and Hera an old Lasat joke that needs so much cultural context to explain it almost isn’t worth it; Ezra and Chopper on the floor in the middle of the room, stripping apart old electrical circuits for spare conductive wires, and arguing in increasingly louder tones with each subsequent sentence and annoyed beep.

They are _whole_. Amongst the uncertainty of rebellion and tyranny, they are a family relaxing and enjoying each other’s company at the end of the day. None of them have any guarantee beyond this moment that they would all come together like this again, but none of them really pay this thought any mind. Now is the time for laughter, good company and leaving thoughts of war and death for later.

The door hisses open. Rex walks in, clone armour clinking. They all look up and greet him cheerfully, like an old friend come to visit. He nods in acknowledgment- his helmet hangs loosely in his hand.

Kanan raises his arm in welcome, smiling, then turns back in amusement to Zeb. The Lasat is now gesturing wildly with his hands, trying and failing to make his point and becoming increasingly frustrated with it. Hera is trying very hard not to laugh at him, and instead turns to ask Rex if he has heard from Ahsoka recently, as she had been trying to contact her earlier in the day to no response. Rex shakes his head in reply.

Chopper beeps something insulting at Ezra, and, scowling, Ezra snarks back a reply, punctuating his words with a threatening jab of a screwdriver. Sabine _hmms_ in disappointment as she dips her fingers into the small mixing pot inspects it closely. She turns and adds the note _‘not pigmented enough, find more cobalt blue’_ to a holopad.

Rex stands a moment as though hesitating, and then jerks to life and marches over to Ezra, leaning over the young boy’s back to survey the messy piles of electronics on the ground.  Ezra eagerly jumps onto his knees and flashes a brilliant, toothy grin up at him, and proudly shows him the mess of wires he’d already managed to salvage. Rex, silent, reaches out and rustles Ezra’s hair between his fingers. With the other hand, he secures the old clone-issued helmet on his head.

A deep, desperate cry of **_danger_** suddenly _thrums_ through the Force; Kanan’s head snaps around to look on instinct.

Rex pulls the blaster from the holster strapped to his hip. Kanan only has a millisecond to choke out a “ _No,”_ and half-lift his hand before the clone fires it point-blank into the back of Ezra’s head.

* * *

 

**_After_ **

 

* * *

 

Several things happen all at once.

Ezra- still with a residual smile tugging at his lips- slumps face-first to the ground like a puppet violently cut from its strings.

Hera gasps and turns her head so fast her lekku swing about wildly, confusion and shock rushing through her.

Zeb and Sabine both twist around with wide eyes towards the familiar noise, hands instinctively reaching for their own holsters. Chopper swivels his own optic lens to the scene before him, doesn’t make a sound.

Kanan is on his feet as quick as a lightning bolt, lightsaber in hand and ignited, blood rushing in his ears.

“ _No_ , what have you _done_?” he yells.

It is Kanan that Rex next turns the blaster on, and fires one, two, _three_ bolts. Hera ducks under the dejarik table with her arms over her head as Kanan deflects the shots.

The third one rebounds directly back at Rex and hits him square in the chest, sending the clone soldier reeling back several steps. He growls like a wounded animal.

It is in this moment that Chopper roars to life and _screams,_ a high-toned, inhuman _waaaaaaahhhhhh,_ and rolls at Rex with all his extensions out and sparking. The droid manages to knock the blaster to the floor, and Rex resorts to his hands to try and fend the droid off. Zeb and Sabine, alarmed, step forward with weapons raised and desperate questions on their lips.

_“Why is he-?”_

_“What the kriff-?”_

In the distraction, Kanan is suddenly crouching at Ezra’s side, not quite remembering the steps he takes to get there.

Ezra is slumped face first and twisted on the metal floor. He is still and deathly quiet; arms limp at his side and one hand still loosely wrapped around a bunch of conductive wiring. The back of Ezra’s head is oozing red; the blood is congealing among clumps of dark hair and the whole twisted mess of grey matter and splintered white bone is smoking slightly. Kanan cannot _breathe_ between the bile rising in his throat and the shock grasping at his heart.

He forces the shaking fingers of his hand to dig into the pulse point at Ezra’s neck, searching for a scrap of hope or _anything_ , really. A sign that this was all a prank, a joke, a _nightmare_.

 Kanan finds nothing, nothing, _nothing_ there and a strangled, grief-tinged wheeze escapes his mouth.

_“Good soldiers follow orders,”_ Rex hisses, and then kicks Chopper back, sending the droid skidding on his side across the room.

Both Sabine and Zeb, with realised war cries of grief, denial and _rage_ rush forward to stop the clone from picking up his blaster again. There is a tussle and grunts and shrieks. Sabine aims her blaster right at Rex’s heart, and he knocks her arm way.

In the meantime, Hera has crawled up beside Kanan. She reaches out, calling for Ezra, Ezra, _Ezra **please**_ , dragging his body into her arms, cradling his broken head in her lap. Crying and shaking. Blood immediately soaks her white shirt and orange overalls. Kanan clenches at Ezra’s jacket in a tight fist until he can feel his own fingernails cutting through the fabric into the palm of his hand. He can’t look at Hera.

To Kanan, it feels unreal. Everything swirls and blurs, sounds and sights shifting and blending. He sees the blue of his lightsaber, hears its familiar _hum_ , and nothing much else.

_“Kill the Jedi, good soldiers follow orders,”_ Rex yells, lunging for Kanan. Sabine shoots him in the leg. Zeb yanks him back with a snarl.

Something in the room _shifts_ ; an energy, wild and raging, courses through the air so loudly that even those without Force-sensitivity turn their heads towards is source. Even Chopper, having righted himself, shrinks away from it with a whimper.

Rex is yanked from Zeb’s grip by mighty invisible hands, flung up against the wall behind him and pinned down with such a force that all the air explodes out of his lungs.

Kanan, arm outstretched, gets slowly and deliberately to his feet. The room goes silent in terrified anticipation. Zeb and Sabine, breathless and bleeding, step back and watch with morbid interest.

Kanan steps forward with measured footsteps, brandishing his lightsaber before him. He flicks his hand and Rex’s helmet flies off and is thrown violently against another wall. The visor cracks as it hits the floor.

There are tears crawling down Kanan’s cheeks, but he makes no sound as he stares pointedly at Rex’s face and brings the glowing blade right up to the clone’s neck.

“Good soldiers… follow… _follow_ ,” Rex gasps and sneers, and struggles.

Kanan’s hands are shaking. All eyes are on him, all mouths either hanging open in shock or set in determined grimaces.  The remaining crew all yearn for instant vengeance and vindication; they’ve had no time to process, no time to wish for anything else.

Hera gently rocks Ezra in her arms, running her fingers through his mangled hair. She does not do it consciously.

Ezra neither sees nor feels any of this.

“Good _-_ good _-good_ soldiers,” Rex whispers. He stops struggling and goes limp against the wall, his eyes and mouth twitching. “Follow ord- _follow_.”

He grunts, then turns his head and looks right into Kanan’s eyes, something wild and tortured passing between them. “ _Kill_ … me. Before I- _follow orders_. Before I- _kill Jedi_. _Again_.”

White noise rushes in Kanan’s ears as he pushes the lightsaber closer to Rex’s neck, all too happy to consider _that_ request. One movement; a thrust forward, quick or maybe slower than was necessary; Rex’s head would roll off his neck and hit the metal floor with a _thud_. Kanan searches the clone’s- _former friend’s, betrayer’s, **murderer’s**_ \- face. There is a bruised, blood encrusted cut over Rex’s right ear, right where an old scar had been.

“Good soldiers…” Rex coughs, and screws his eyes shut. “Must follow… _Ahsoka… Ezra… no, what have I…”_

The world stops swirling. Crystal clear clarity slams into Kanan at full speed. _Ezra is dead._ Ezra, Ezra, sweetfunnybrave **_Ezra,_** _dead_. Kanan hadn’t protected him. Nothing he did would ever bring Ezra back or change what had happened tonight.

He snaps his eyes back to the fresh cut on Rex’s bald head. It is all so wrong and familiar and _utterly_ cruel, to have history repeat itself in this way. Right then and there he wants to rush the Imperial palace on Coruscant itself, kill the Emperor himself and burn it all to the ground.

Kanan yells- guttural and animalistic. His world implodes in on itself. He rips the lightsaber back, turns it off and throws it away. It rolls to a stop somewhere close to the cracked clone helmet.

At the same time, Kanan reaches into the Force, pulls Rex forward and then slams him backwards, before releasing him entirely. The clone slides down the wall and slumps to the ground, unconscious.

“Bind his hands and feet, and lock him in a secure place. _Make_ _sure_ he can’t get out or hurt himself,” Kanan says, taking several unsteady steps backwards. He gulps around the lump in his throat, and sucks in a haggard breath. “We _need_ to get him medical help as soon as we can. _The Empire did this, I know they did.”_

The room and its occupants hang for a moment in suspended shock, like a horrid spell had been cast over them all.

It breaks when Zeb lurches forward and crouches before Rex. Sabine, despite the storm raging in her mind and the shaking in her hands, keeps her pistol trained on the clone as the Lasat picks him up and slings him over his shoulder. Neither Sabine or Zeb look in Hera’s direction.

Kanan turns around only when Rex and Zeb have left the room. His legs give out beneath him, and pain splinters through his knees as they hit the metal floor

Hera is now bent over, pressing her lips to the undamaged top of Ezra’s head, and haltingly singing a soft Rylothian lullaby. Her breaths come out increasingly ragged and fast. Chopper wheels over and pokes uncertainly at Ezra’s legs, beeping sadly.

Sabine cannot breathe. “How did this happen? How could _he_ \- how could _we_ -”she hisses, gripping at the roots of her blue-tinted hair. Her fingers are streaked with blood and paint, red and blue.

Kanan cannot answer, any words of clarification or reassurance die in his throat. He sees Ezra, lying face-first in a small undignified heap. He blinks, and sees Depa Billaba sprawled similarly in the dirt. He sees blood, and hears his former friends yelling, _“Good soldiers follow-”_ and smells the plasma of blaster bolts in the air, and the visceral stench of open, bleeding wounds. He gags and doubles over.

Depa Billaba hadn’t had a chance. Ezra Bridger hadn’t even realised what had happened. He’d died in an instant with a bright smile on his young face.

Sabine cries in frustration and stalks from the room with heavy metallic footsteps, unable to control the potent energy building up inside her. Her fingers itch and curl into fists, and Zeb has to stop her from breaking down the door to the supply room where he has stashed Rex’s unconscious form.

Zeb pulls Sabine tight to his chest and lift her from the ground, and all he wants to do is roar alongside her as she screams for blood and vengeance on Ezra’s behalf.

Back in the common room, Hera suddenly goes quiet. Her tears run out, and her breathing returns, hiccupping, to a vaguely normal rhythm. She is left clutching at a corpse that’s growing colder and stiffer by the minute. Her gloves are covered in blood and brain matter and some of it wipes off onto Chopper’s chasse as she reaches out to comfort the far-too quiet astromech by her side. Hera looks to Kanan and has to close her eyes against the sight.

Kanan is curled forward on his knees, hands loosely covering his face- a cruel parody of a prayer pose. He can feel himself collapsing inwards, body and mind being pulled towards a gaping black hole that had appeared in his centre, somewhere next to his heart. He does not shake or cry, merely looks at the scuffed metal floor through the gaps in his fingers, feeling _nothing_ and _everything_.

Somewhere in the endless folds of the living Force, Ezra awakens alone, confused and scared.

They are _broken_. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was trawling about twenty pages deep in someone’s (pretty sure it was eyeloch's) Star Wars Rebels tag on tumblr the other day and found a post that headcannoned each of the Ghost crew’s fears, and this was essentially what the OP had down for Kanan- Rex walking in and just shooting Ezra out of the blue. It hit me so hard I audibly gasped. 
> 
> So here we are, with this self-indulgent angst fest, and me realising I am a complete dang masochist. This is the darkest thing I’ve ever published online.
> 
> (My Kanan pop vinyl figure is staring at me again. Please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry for hurting your son.)
> 
> I have started a couple of other fics that explore some of Kanan’s other fears for Ezra, so I might (?) make this a little series? We’ll see.


End file.
